


But Still We Keep

by AKimera (binz), binz



Category: Earth: Final Conflict
Genre: Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-19
Updated: 2008-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-07 13:18:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/binz/pseuds/AKimera, https://archiveofourown.org/users/binz/pseuds/binz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little help with being an alien on Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Still We Keep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jewels](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Jewels).



> Written for Yuletide 2008. Set mid-S4.

The light appeared early in the evening. Bright and strobing, it flooded the mountains from behind, washed out the pink of the sunset and bleached the trees, the hills, the fields; it reflected off the patches of snow scattered iced and gritty grey through the grass, and blazed across the sky.

Mabel Arrison squinted through her fingers and out the window, wet skin cooling in the dry air and dripping suds. The glass slipped from her hand and fell back into the sink, the splash of it meeting the dishwater lost in the brightness that was both blinding and deafening. The light streaked downward at a sharp angle and met the foothills, as far off as Mabel could see, right by the highway turn-off to the 'Pass. A moment later the ground rumbled beneath her feet.

Colour returned: the familiar horizon peaked and bright with the promise of stars at the outskirts and shining pink and orange again upon the gold tangle of half-melted snow and old crops, stretching until it blended into the muscles of the land. Nothing showed where the light had met the ground until smoke began to rise slowly into the air, starting with a long, thin plume, then blossoming out into a wall of mixed dust, gritty and brown.

The ground shook again as the cattle moved around the farmhouse as one, and Mabel swore and dashed out after them, grabbing her heavy coat at the door.

∞

The cow blinked at him, large brown eyes dull in the early morning grey, and Liam blinked back, hunching his shoulders to bring his scarf up higher around his neck. The sharp prairie wind was undeterred, and Liam let his shoulders drop, cheeks stinging and breath white around him. The cow chewed her cud, and flicked her tail.

"They just won't go back," Mrs Arrison said, shaking her head, her rain-booted feet planted firmly on the ground and hands on her hips. She was bright against the grey and brown of the landscape, coat red and black plaid, knit hat purple, and the gloves on her hands bright green. "Scared stiff. But at least I won't have to worry about them wandering off, eh?" She tilted sardonic lips, and Liam huffed a laugh. His fingers were beginning to tingle with the wind and altitude.

"And you saw nothing else?" Sandoval said, looking away from the cows and west toward the mountains and the impact site, his fingers gloved in thin leather and tapping across the screen of his Global.

Liam flexed his fingers inside his pockets, and looked west at the foothills and mountains himself, peering through the opaque promise of Sandoval's memories of his first winter off the island, and his shock at the cold. _Must have seen one hell of a sunset,_ he thought.

Mrs Arrison spread her hands. "Called the police as soon as I was back inside," she said. "Didn't see anything else happening 'round the 'Pass overnight; radio said the road was closed, but didn't mention anyone hurt, or anything big and metal and scary walking away." She raised an eyebrow; Liam buried his smile in his scarf while Sandoval simply nodded around his blank expression, as if that were exactly what he wished to hear after the efforts the Companion offices had been putting toward spin control once the Taelons had returned from their flight at the threat of imminent Jaridian attack.

"Very well," Sandoval said. "We appreciate your time, Mrs Arrison." A decisive tap against the Global screen was punctuation, and he turned to face the shuttle, parked next to a bright green tractor outside the barn. "Please do not hesitate to contact the closest Companion office, or either myself or Major Kincaid personally, if you recall or see anything else."

He set off, and Liam flashed Mrs Arrison a smile, waiting a minute to follow Sandoval; something, Liam cheerfully admitted, he did more to prove a point, than for any pressing purpose. He tipped his head toward the warm, solid mass of cattle, low energy seeping into the air with steam from their breathing and soft, wet noses. "Hope the shuttle doesn't upset them anymore than they already are," he said, and Mrs Arrison laughed.

"Cows aren't the smartest of things, Major," she said, brushing his words away. "Follow anything that seems safe, and their main defense mechanism is to take a shit. You really worried? See if you can get Agent Sandoval back here with a shovel."

Liam laughed and ducked his head, trotting off after Sandoval when he received a particularly impatient foot-tap.

∞

Liam landed the shuttle alongside a handful of others. The ground swarmed with Volunteers, and Liam raised an eyebrow as he waved away the virtual glass, swinging out of the pilot's seat, and beat Sandoval out the opening and onto the ground. _Two points in five minutes,_ he thought, flicking open his Global to glance at the time. His father might favour a pocket watch, but Liam doubted he could pull one off, and he wasn't about to wear something strapped around his wrist if he didn't need to.

Sandoval cut him off while he was trying to get the Global back into his pocket, and Liam smiled. Point for Sandoval.

What had been described by the witnesses as a bright, pulsing light had turned out be a chunk of space debris roughly the size of a softball. It had plowed itself a meter-deep groove into the ground, and whatever width of a crater it had been upon impact, it had been widened into a good-sized pit by the Volunteers.

"It was steaming when we got here, the whole ground," a voice said from behind him, and Liam turned to face the black-suited Volunteer.

"Sargent Taber," he said, and sidestepped slightly to block Sandoval, turned and on his own way back.

"Major," the Sargent said. "Agent Sandoval. The steam faded off a few hours in. Although most of the snow melted, you can see the ice that the water formed on the perimeter snow around the site. Preliminary scans of the object are varying. There's a thick layer of space dust, and dirt and dust consistent with the area -- no doubt picked up on descent and when it landed. Almost solid ice, but that seems to be melting. There's some type of metal underneath the dirt, but we haven't managed visual confirmation of that yet. And possibly something organic underneath that. Any scan picking it up has been very faint. It might be a trace of grass or something from when it hit the ground."

Liam shook his head; his ears rang like he'd left ID space and hadn't let the virtual glass re-solidify before disengaging it. Not that they'd been anywhere near ID space since leaving the Embassy. He frowned, flicking his gaze across the Volunteers and Sandoval. No one else seemed bothered, and Liam focused his hearing around the sound, replaying the last moments of Taber's report.

_Of course,_ Liam thought. _Can't just let it be a rock._ "Organic how?" he said at the same time that Sandoval asked: "What kind of metal?"

"Unknown, Sirs," Tabor answered them both. He started off toward the technical set-up at the end of the impact site, and Liam and Sandoval fell into step behind him. Liam rotated his jaw, not bothering to do anything but pace Sandoval, and Sandoval glanced up at him.

"Everything all right, Major?"

"Ears won't pop," Liam said, and thunked a palm against his head.

"... I suggest you hit harder, Major," Sandoval said, and Liam smirked, letting his long legs carry him into the lead

The moment his foot came down on the edge of the pit, the ringing turned into a poorly tuned, full-orchestra brass section. His ears did pop, and the Volunteers erupted into a flurry of chatter. The scanner started beeping and Sandoval rushed over. Liam jumped into the pit before he thought about whether or not it might be a good idea.

The dirt and metal was sloughing off the object, the ice melting away, piling and puddling at the sides, all spongy-looking and shriveled. The brass section got louder and sharper. Inside was a small ball of something green and black, dry and old looking, and Liam bent low, holding out one gloved hand at an angle in front of him.

"Don't touch it, Major," Sandoval said. "Get a scanner."

"Do I _look_ stupid?" Liam said, and grimaced as his ears threatened to do more than pop.

The brass section gave way to strings, gentle and quiet, and the dry green something split, peeling down the sides and turning rubbery and dull as it pulled away. At the centre of the remains was a pile of small, brightly green spheres, oblong and almost luminescent in the weak light.

"Looks like the inside of a pomegranate," a voice said from above him, and Liam looked to see a Volunteer Captain holding down a scanner.

"Yeah," he said, taking the scanner from her and resisting the urge to cross his fingers as the results began to process. "Doesn't seem to be harmful," he said, allowing some dubiousness to cross his face. "Sandoval," he said, looking up. "Can you pass me something to put these in? We should take them up. They're organic, although energy indications are really low."

Sandoval tossed down a small, resealable container with maybe a little more force than necessary, and watched closely. Liam popped off the lid, using it to brush the things into the container, and let his body block the view from above. He straighted, holding up the resealed container, and let Sandoval bend to take it, before scrambling out of the pit.

Taber tossed another two containers at the Captain as she scrambled down into the pit, and Liam heard the sound of the metallic and organic remains being scraped up, but kept his eyes on the container in Sandoval's hands.

"What are you waiting for, Major?" Sandoval said. "Let's go."

∞

The Taelons responded in much the way that Liam had expected. Hands went stiff with shock, and fell limp a moment later; flashes of energy brightened and widened in surprise and excitement; eyes lost colour and gained it again. The Communality buzzed in the back of his head like someone else's bass. The scientists hissed and murmured in Eunoia; Zo'or ordered the humans out of the lab; and Da'an peered after Liam while the door sealed between them.

At lunch, Renee rubbed chapped hands together, February in DC wasn't much better than February on the northern prairie, and demanded details while she stabbed at her sakekawa maki and muttered about making another surprise visit to one of the Doors International Florida locations. Liam chewed his gyoza and unagi and debated telling her she had sauce on her chin.

Da'an did not appear again that day, and Liam docked his shuttle in the Mothership bay before returning to the Embassy and tackling a pile of paperwork that was as boring as he'd feared. He stayed twenty minutes late, and, on his way out, asked Sandoval irritating questions about where he'd been all afternoon.

By the time Liam made it home, the door to the upper level of the Flat Planet Café locking behind him, he was almost shaking. He peeled off his gloves, shoving them into one pocket, and took off his duster, hanging it from the back of the door. He got himself a glass of water, and salvaged a take-away coffee cup from the garbage, gently washing away any remains of the tea and sugar, and let it air dry while he stripped and pulled on a pair of loose jeans and the closest thing he had to an old sweatshirt.

He soaked some paper towels with water, and folded them into the cup; scooped some potting soil out of a Mother-of-Thousands Lili had given him, and added some more water. The Kimeran homeworld had been far more uniformly humid than DC, even if the _ha'li'an_ was the hardiest weed it had had.

Liam was careful when he eased the three seeds from his duster pocket, the skin contact leaving his fingers buzzing and his body too large for itself. It wasn't the homeworld Consonance he knew from Ha'gel's memories, but it was something, far subtler and far more comfortable than the constant background hum of the Taelon Communality.

His shoulders relaxed.

He pushed the seeds into the soil, and brushed some more over top. His fingertips glowed green for a moment after the contact ended, and he watched it fade before rubbing the clinging dirt off his fingers and into the cup.

Liam placed the cup onto the lip of his window, and settled down onto his mattress. He couldn't keep it there, he knew. Not once it started to grow. He'd need to get more houseplants, and something to keep them on. Blend it in until it was too big and obviously alien and he'd need to move it again. Take some clippings, maybe. But for now, the weak, early spring sunlight would do it good, and he'd keep the heat inside as high as he could.

Liam curled a hand around the cup and peered out over DC, watching street lights flicker on and off and office windows catch the glint of the setting sun and throw it back. Orange and gold glimmered off the the curves of the Taelon Embassy and the sides of the Washington Monument, and Liam fed the plant as much energy as he could until the stars came out.


End file.
